A vicious act of terror in Boston

You can hardly imagine a more innocent public venue than a marathon, where most participants run solely for the love of the sport after devoting untold hours to building their endurance and strength.

So naturally you can hardly imagine a more vicious blow to our collective sense of peace and security than the sort of terror attack that rocked the nation Monday in Boston.

We write this while the details of the bombings are only beginning to be confirmed, and with no knowledge of whom the perpetrator might be. But whatever the particulars of his grievance, his broader purpose -- to harm as many innocent people as possible while sowing fear in everyone else -- is unmistakable.

And as often is the case when someone without scruples seeks such ugly ends, he has been too tragically successful in his quest.

Here in sports-happy Colorado, we boast of the Bolder Boulder in running, the USA Pro Challenge in cycling, and a variety of other high-profile events. What precautions and inconveniences will the organizers of those competitions now feel obliged to impose on those who participate or attend -- and to what actual usefulness?

We can only echo the sentiments of the Bolder Boulder website, which by mid-afternoon Monday had posted a note saying, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Boston, the Boston running community and the Boston Marathon family.

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We can't reflect on the despicable attack on innocent people in Boston without at least some reference to our own community's horror last year at an Aurora theater -- another venue of seeming innocence turned into a living hell. And yet as raw as the scars from that massacre remain, it's worth noting that Americans haven't been intimidated from going to movies as a result, any more than they will cease participating in the sports they love because of what happened Monday.

Such attacks may shock us to the core because of their mindless cruelty, but our society -- resilient and fundamentally stable -- ultimately shakes them off and moves on.

In terms of style and venue, Monday's attack seems to have more similarities to the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, which killed one person (another died of a heart attack) and injured more than 100.

The terrorist behind that assault, Eric Rudolph, would unfortunately go on to set other bombs elsewhere and hurt other innocent people before being corraled and arrested finally in 2003.

Let us hope for a far quicker resolution to the crime in Boston. And let us also hope that the injured survivors of the attack are able to heal in time, too -- in body to the extent possible, of course, but also in spirit.

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